Making a Difference

Part 2—Making a Difference
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Meeting diverse learning needs with differentiated instruction
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Teachers can provide scaffolds in a variety of ways, such as activating 
background knowledge, providing prompts or think sheets, or facilitating guided 
practice. Collaborative and supportive interactions between a student and a more 
knowledgeable other (the teacher, a parent, or another student) help students 
bridge the gap between what they know and what they do not know. Scaffolding 
support also can be created by technology or written material that provides 
prompts and other needed material.
Effective scaffolded instruction:
involves intentional planning 
• 
considers student strengths, needs and current level of knowledge and skill 
• 
(as identi
fi
ed in individual learner pro
fi
les and other in-class assessment 
strategies)
focuses on a speci
fi
c learning goal or type of skill 
• 
provides tailored assistance that is adjusted on an as-needed basis
• 
provides emotional support (e.g., praise and encouragement)
• 
provides speci
fi
c feedback that highlights student progress and identi
fi
es 
• 
speci
fi
c behaviours that contributed to success
controls for frustrations and risk by creating learning environments that 
• 
are safe and learning tasks that are within what a student can do
helps students begin to generalize and internalize learning
• 
helps students become more con
fi
dent and independent learners.
• 
Accurately determining a student’s current level of functioning is key to planning 
and implementing scaffolded instruction. For many students with learning 
dif
fi
culties, scaffolding will be adjustable but ongoing. To maintain a reasonable 
level of competence, many students with learning dif
fi
culties will require 
scaffolding for the long term. The degree of scaffolding needed may change 
across subject areas, types of learning task and contexts and environments for 
learning. Teachers can help students generalize their learning by identifying 
other contexts where they can apply the process and by actively encouraging the 
students to practise the task or process in these contexts.
For more information on scaffolded instruction, see 
Chapter 5:
Differentiated 
Learner Experiences
.
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